


Lifeline

by Sonzaishinai



Series: The Owl’s Music Prompts [3]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Superman (Comics), Superman - All Media Types, Superman/Batman (Comics)
Genre: Art Prompts, Bruce is comatose, Didnt know what to put w the song I chose for this day so, Friends turned Enemies, I chose to write about THAT day and also used Clark as Bruce's "lifeline", Lifeline by Thousand Foot Krutch, M/M, Music Prompts, None of this story is actually planned tbh i just write off the bat so idk what the fuck I wrote, Obsessed Kal el, Story Prompts, Suicidal Thoughts, You'll get it if you read it but it was unplanned so its really shitty i would think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 05:16:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16825894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sonzaishinai/pseuds/Sonzaishinai
Summary: It was a chilling fact to discover- that the day he so often labeled as his biggest regret was actually a day that would have been more horrific had he not stumbled into Wayne Manor while Bruce was loading a gun.





	Lifeline

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Letters](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16797736) by [FoxyPoxy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxyPoxy/pseuds/FoxyPoxy). 



> Tbh I really don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Most of these are likely to be written off the bat aka without a legitimate plan for the quickfic. Just enjoy the shitty art I guess. I was trying out a new style for this one.
> 
> Also, sorry for the delay, I had to write a graduation speech for someone and then my English teacher started our Unit essay so I've been busy with writing mine while simultaneously helping my classmates write theirs. Chances are I won't get to write for the rest of the week either what with the upcoming drafts I'll have to be typing out and whatnot. Also, finals week is around the corner so yall fuckin know it's gonna be shitty and crowded. I'm posting this the day before my bday tho so that's cool I guess. Idk. 
> 
> A big part of this is also inspired by Letters by FoxyPoxy (m8 if ur reading this, I love it btw), since i didn't know what to do with this... mess, I thought, hey, what if FoxyPoxy's concept crossed over into the Injustice Universe and clark got to read the letters progressing from the start of their friendship up until the masterpiece of a double edged sword that's Injustice? and then this abomination came stumbling out (sorry for tarnishing ur masterpiece FoxyPoxy)
> 
> Enjoy. Today's prompt; Lifeline by Thousand Foot Krutch

“You know my deepest regret, Bruce?” 

A voice hoarse with the stress of expressing its owner’s rage rung out in the promethium enclosed cell, echoing in the empty space that ensured escape would be impossible for the vigilante caged inside.

No response came to the question.

Regardless, a “tsk” followed, and the voice spoke, again, “Who am I kidding? You’re Batman. You’d know it before even I did.” A chuckle came after the rhetorical questions.

“My deepest regret was having stopped you from going out to kill the Joker that night-” a clench of the fists “- stopping you from stumbling out into the dark with that gun you’d gotten your hands on!” Even though no answer came to his ramblings, Kal pressed on. “You should have killed him, Bruce,” he ground out and punched the glass of the cell, though, restrained, “should have taken any of the _ thousands _ of chances that you’d gotten to beat his skull in  _ like he deserved _ .”   
  
The hand against the barrier spread open, then, and, palm against the glass, it slid down till only the fingertips remained in contact with the smooth, transparent cell. A whisper, then, “Maybe, if I’d sacrificed you in spite of our collective, naive morals, we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

In the silence, Kal pressed his forehead to the glass. “Would you take the chance, Bruce?” Eyes remained locked on the figure trapped inside, comatose and shriveled as it had been doing for the last ten months in captivity. Ten months with declining health and heart aching moments that let Kal realize the importance of Bruce in his life. Ten months of watching the last man who believed in him wither away, being slowly chewed on by Death. He knew he wouldn’t get a response but he kept talking anyway because it was better than wallowing in the dreadful pit at the bottom of his gut that was, unmistakably, guilt.   
  
“If you had the opportunity to stop all of this from ever happening, would you take it?” It was a stupid question. He knew his best-friend-turned-adversary would take any chance to prevent this mess, even if it cost him his life. After all, he’d done the very same trying to bring an end to it, now. 

In his other hand, the one still unmoving, Kal held that day’s letter. The letters that were supposed to arrive on a daily basis following Bruce’s death- started back when they were barely getting along but had established a common base with one another. Ones that had followed the progression of their friendship and, eventually, their descent into war. 

Bruce had yet to die, except Kal had found the letters- years worth of them- piled in what seemed to be hundreds of boxes stored in a lead-constructed storage room in the far corners of the cave, all of the letters labeled with their corresponding dates, nice and neat. Almost obsessively organized, perhaps. Stacks on stacks that compressed ten years of friendship, and then a couple months of nothing but pain and war.   
  
When Kal first found them, he was eager to sort through them in hopes that he could find something that’d lend him an upper hand in their battle- leverage against the might Batman, a human so delicate and yet so intelligent and brutal that he’d managed a resistance against a pseudo-god.    
  
Except he found the first letter, easily discovered what with Bruce having meticulously sorted them. Found that it was addressed to him, found details about the boxes, what they contained and why and he was sent reeling, standing immobile while his head turned about to look at the rest of the dusty, dim room in awe of the effort- the dedication, pain, nostalgia, and grief of it all. 

He personally gathered all the boxes (he couldn’t trust anyone else to handle Bruce’s work and Bruce wouldn’t trust anyone else, either) to deliver them from there to the Fortress where his parents were still hidden. Shut them away where no one would be able to find them. They were for his viewing and his viewing only. 

Bruce wasn’t dead yet, but the following day, he still picked up a letter. By the first sentence, he was enraptured with Bruce’s work, found himself scouring the letter from top to bottom repetitively with quick eyes and then slow, to savor the emotions behind it.

From there, it became an addiction. He was obsessed, albeit calm and collected, going back and forth between the Fortress to dig out that day’s letter, if not bringing with him entire stacks or boxes that he’d read one by one with the corresponding days when he knew he wouldn’t be able to return to the Fortress to read them. Some days, there was very little to read. Others, there could be three or more papers stuffing the poor envelope, brimming with  his Bruce’s adventures or rants, almost therapeutic in nature. By the end of the letters, he’d, again, go back and forth between the beginning and ends of it, rereading over and over as if there’d be any change until he had to attend to some other duty. If he was itching to open another one, he’d go back into his “read” pile, scan through the past and indulge in the feelings engraved into the paper with pen and ink, noting all the little quirks in Bruce’s elegant,  _ true  _ handwriting and noting all of them with a sense of pride as though he was the only one to get this treatment. Now, there were more than one pages with wrinkled sheets, their corners worn and paper browning with how many times they’d been looked over, again and again.   
  


Kal doesn’t think he can live without the letters anymore, reminding him of what he and Bruce had before his mistakes lead to the death of his wife, unborn child, and city.

By the time Ma and Pa had noticed, they thought so, too, believing them to be hurting their son. They sought out Jor-El and the AI betrayed him, allowing them to read several letters including the first one addressing the reasons for the abundant writing. When he got back to the Fortress, home earlier than he believed he’d be, he found them poring over sheets that had yet to be opened by him and he was so thoroughly enraged, he almost hit his parents before reeling with the horror of the thoughts.   
  
Instead, he rushed forward, gathering the letters and stumbling as his parents yelled at him to slow down, to stop as he obsessively matched their dates and sought out their boxes, fixing them back into place.

That day, he disabled Jor-El’s AI system. 

In the safety of the cell, still, keeping watch over  his Bruce, he mulled over yesterday’s letter. It detailed one of the days Dick ran away from home, mad, again, with Bruce. In him, a little smidge of Clark remembered that day with warmth. In Dick’s anger, he’d gone about without planning what he’d do and resorted to crashing at Clark’s place over in Metropolis. Clark had come home that day with near heart attack when he found the teen sitting on his couch munching on his cereal, regret staining the young boy’s face. Apparently, after having some time to himself, he had thoroughly felt regret at his outlash, understanding where Bruce’s argument was drawn from but afraid to return to Wayne Manor.

The poor boy had thought he’d be disappointed with, if not furious or even worse, disowned, and Clark had to talk him down from that line of thinking, convincing Dick that in spite of what he did, Bruce still considered him his son and that no amount of fighting would make him think otherwise, even with the introduction of the new orphan in his absence. 

In Bruce’s letter for that day, Clark landed devastatingly right, and while Clark rode out Dick’s stay with little consideration for how Bruce might have been feeling at that time considering how Dick described him having reacted to their fight, Kal was more than sorrowful at having ignored his best friend for his well-recognized method of showing affection. That day, the letter was laced with self-loathing, words that should have been perceived as lies stacked on top of each other as Bruce described himself as a horrible father- a failure, even, and cracked a joke at being a disappointment to his parents. It was more than devastating, seeing that all while he sat in his apartment watching “Doctor Who” with Dick, Bruce was over at his manor wallowing in regret and pain. In that instance, Kal found himself jokingly thinking that he should add that to his list of regrets when he talked with Bruce.

Then, in the present, Kal’s lip curled somewhat, forming a half smile while pain scrunched up his face. Thinking back, Bruce tended to… brood over things… for extended periods of time. He had a feeling that the next of his letters would be brimming with guilt and hurt- overthinking and self-deprecation. 

With one last look at the pale body in the room, Kal made his decision and walked inside after clearance of all security measures at the door. There, he sat down beside Bruce’s bed, opening the letter again and bringing the box he had sitting beside him while he yelled at the glass to the side of the chair. 

He didn’t know what he wanted for himself anymore.

Did he really want Bruce dead?

  
  


Then the day came, the horrible, horrible day months later when he reached Jason’s death in the letters.

Bruce woke up that day, the medicine and procedures they’d been implementing saving his crippling body.

He awoke silently to Kal with his hand against his face as if to stop any oncoming sobs while he read a letter laced with nothing but rage and grief, words inadequately describing the loss of a beloved child that both men could relate to. Boiling grief that took on the entirety of Bruce’s mind back then and left little thought for his own self all while he choked on the rage that engulfed him simultaneously. So much pain had gone into writing that letter, forcing himself to calm with every intervening period, five pages worth of clenched fists and scratchy, shaky writing that forced breaks in between the sentences just so Bruce could right himself before he went on to continue venting to the page, describing his own self-hatred and his hatred for the clown. Words upon words that could define hell itself as Bruce let on sobs and tears onto the page where he let out a cry for help that wouldn’t be heard till it was too late to ease the pain. Where Bruce had done nothing less than pour out his heart and hurt into telling Clark that he couldn’t take it any longer- that the clown was going to take everything from him, everyone he loved and more when he had nothing left for himself.    
  
Bruce recognized the letter with a vague horror, enamored with the fixed sight of Kal reading it over and over again, turning back to the first of the page to torture himself with the pain of Bruce’s grief.

Then- only then- Bruce, waking from his stiff, post-catatonic state realized why that horror had settled into his gut.   
  
That was letter was meant to be his last letter, written before Clark came stumbling in to him loading a pistol with a single bullet, believing he’d been resigned to hunting down and murdering the Joker- letting him win their “game”. 

When Kal flipped to the last page again, he sat through Kal reading the last of the lines obsessively, once more. In spite of the cloudy haze over his head, Bruce could remember the last of the lines; tear-stained sorries intermixed with words about how he’d given up- how he couldn’t keep on going with life and that losing his parents was devastating enough, but now his failures had lead to him losing another person he loved dearly and that he couldn’t keep being a parasite in everybody’s life the way he was, then.

Bruce’s wish, then, was that Kal didn’t understand the entirety of his writing- that he thought they were referring to him and Joker’s eternal dance rather than his own desires to end his life. It was, truly, wishful thinking, but he knew that the cries for help in that letter were too distinct, that the build-up to a decision couldn’t be ignored and that the last line was too clear on his intent.   
  
‘I’m sorry we didn’t have more time together, Clark. Please, forgive me.’

Kal was still too wrapped up in reading to notice Bruce’s awareness. Relieved, he closed his eyes against the stark light illuminating the room. He didn’t know where they were going to go from there.

[Lifeline by Thousand Foot Krutch](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s4sHumH8x0)

**Author's Note:**

> Tbh I really don't know what the fuck I'm doing. Most of these are likely to be written off the bat aka without a legitimate plan for the quickfic. Just enjoy the shitty art I guess. I was trying out a new style for this one.
> 
> Also, sorry for the delay, I had to write a graduation speech for someone and then my English teacher started our Unit essay so I've been busy with writing mine while simultaneously helping my classmates write theirs. Chances are I won't get to write for the rest of the week either what with the upcoming drafts I'll have to be typing out and whatnot. Also, finals week is around the corner so yall fuckin know it's gonna be shitty and crowded. I'm posting this the day before my bday tho so that's cool I guess. Idk. 
> 
> A big part of this is also inspired by Letters by FoxyPoxy (m8 if ur reading this, I love it btw), since i didn't know what to do with this... mess, I thought, hey, what if FoxyPoxy's concept crossed over into the Injustice Universe and clark got to read the letters progressing from the start of their friendship up until the masterpiece of a double edged sword that's Injustice? and then this abomination came stumbling out (sorry for tarnishing ur masterpiece FoxyPoxy)
> 
> Enjoy. Today's prompt; Lifeline by Thousand Foot Krutch


End file.
